YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett

The point is that in spite of all the crass idiots, disasters and inexcusable shortcomings that the National Health Service presents us with, we still know that in our hour of need we have it there as our safeguard. And I suspect that the occasional stupidity is perpetrated by an HMO in the US.

I'm a bit wary about taking everything in the papers at face value but if someone actually did tell a mother in labour to walk in for the full delivery, I hope someone somewhere will be going on holiday very fast.
 

Wow Owen, on in Real Time!

I do hope the person who told that woman to walk does get sent on a long unpaid holiday!

and you are right, there are TERRIBLE short-comings in the U.S. system. I consider the U.S. system disastrous.

I am fed up with the people here who use incidents that sometimes happen in the U.K. or Canada as an excuse to leave a bad situation in place.

There is a very famous and mostly o.k. HMO in California, Kaiser-Permanente, My family was on it when I was a kid, they even had house calls available on the premium plan my step - dad got us. He got it that way because my mother could not drive and he worked nearly an hour away.

There was a huge scandal when an ambulance carrying a very badly injured child who happened to be 1. from a non-member family and 2. Black, got turned away. Damn near started a riot that incident did.

I also had trouble getting help for a pregnant friend who could have used a home health care aid. Those only were for people with cancer. I think that is a vast short-coming. She had a placenta previa. She could have died, she had four children and she was on bed rest for six months. I actually spent most of my time at her place until shortly before she delivered. She had a rough rough time and in any sane society she would have had help from professional people not just a friend at a time like that. The baby lived, but I can tell you the delivery almost killed them both and there were some scary moments during her pregnancy.

I don't know what would have happened in England, but I do know that in France she would have had no problems!
 

Yes, France isn't perfect as they found out in the heatwave summer, but generally the standard of care is really good (though you do get prescribed suppositories for everything).

I think Kaiser Permanente are one of the sharks circling the National Health Service. The Blairites were desperate to hive off as much as they could to the friends in the private health care industry who appoint them to directorships.

I can't stand the way the rich and healthy are always determined to squeeze more out of the poor and sick. Sadly it looks as if their campaign is getting the better of Obama. That means more risk for us down the line.
 

Yes it does and it makes me MAD AS HELL! I voted for Obama because of what I hoped he'd do for us and isn't doing. :(